My friends' daughter is a Dora The Explorer fanatic and is generally watching it when I come over for dinner or to hang out. Last time she was watching it I said, "If you ever are hiking and come across a pit full of six giant pythons like Dora just did, you probably shouldn't befriend them."

That got the dagger glare. Three year old's dagger glares cut deep, I tell you what.

All too often, cartoonists and writers of childrens' fiction try to sneak occult references into their work in an attempt to indoctrinate our children into non-Christian lifestyles that are contrary to His teachings. These demonic influences can be so subtle that I often don't even recognize them immediately myself.Luckily, my neighbor's dog usually tells me which books and cartoons are ok.

Hey, now! Building plaster dinosaurs, mopping the floor, and selling admission tickets at the creation museum is in fact a VERY satisfying and rewarding career. Mainly because I'm skimming the till, but it's still satisfying!

Keeve:This is not my theory, but I haven't seen it pointed out yet that Dora is obviously a drug mule for the Mexican cartels. C'mon she's armed with a map and a backpack. Swiper obviously represents the border patrol.

Just like how the woman from "Murder She Wrote" is obviously a serial killer who is an absolute master at framing other people for her crimes.

cherryl taggart:One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

You should get him a Dora piñata and convert it into Murderface for him:

If you have Amazon Prime, you have to watch The Magic Stick episode. The first 3 minutes or so are worthless, but then Dora and Boots find a "magic stick" that they have to tug mightily on to remove from a rock. When they succeed, they are bathed in a white, sparkling light from above. Animals appear and celebrate as both Dora and Boots cling to the stick, and generally fawn over it (it's worth noting that Boots chooses to carry the stick through the entire journey, rather than put the stick safely in Backpack, which is what they generally will do with valuable objects). But wait! The Magic Stick must be allowed to "do it's trick", which can only be accomplished from the "highest hill".

Things proceed normally for another 12-15 minutes, though The Magic Stick proves useful in solving almost any problem for the duo. Finally we reach the end (climax?), where both Dora and Boots insert The Magic Stick into the Highest Hill, which is completely barren. But nothing happens! No, a chant must be recited: at which point the white sparkles again erupt from the top of The Magic Stick, and the Highest Hill is covered in rich greenery and flowers in their wake. Finally, The Magic Stick rises into the air; Dora and Boots grab on, and The Magic Stick flies them around the land. They embrace when they land, so joyous are they, and Dora celebrates by putting one of the flowers created by The Magic Stick in her hair.

I want it to be satire, but let's face it, this is how religion came about in the first place: Overthinking crap until an intricate series of utterly fabricated explanations start to sound more and more plausible as each mental construct reinforces the next in an enless series of "So if X, then Y must be so, and if Y must be so, then..." statements.

And that's how you end up with the devil in Dora. Which also sounds like a great name for a modernized classic porno.

I feel bad for having clicked and read any of that garbage. That being said, when my daughter was born, i told my wife that she will not even know Dora is a thing until she starts interacting with other kids. 6+ months on and I am still winning that battle.

//Still have a sneaking suspicion that my wife is better at picking battles than I am though.

CtrlAltDestroy:Mega Steve: When my son was little, I'd always try to get him to watch The Big Comfy Couch. I couldn't put my finger on why, but Loonette looked pretty damn good, even if she was a clown.

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Later, I saw some pics of her out of the clown makeup

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Now I know that not all clowns are scary. A select few are hotties in disguise

My little sister is 7 years younger than me. I remember that show being on when she was little. I didn't mind it so much because it wasn't obnoxious and she was easy on the eyes.

Raug the Dwarf:kid_icarus: Raug the Dwarf: kid_icarus: TFA so much reminds me of this...

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/anyone else have their childhood ruined by this garbage?

Holy Crap, man. My parents lived by that shiat when I was a kid. I'll see you that one and raise you a...

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I don't remember exactly, but our church showed some video similar to that that "exposed" the demonic reality of rock n' roll. The video, being a bit outdated (much like the middle-aged church people screening it) featured heavy metal from the 80s (we were into the 90s by this point).

I bet it was the same one. That video, they drug out some of the most inane, underground crap and said "Look how evil it is!!!" Then pointed to crap like Prince and Whitney Houston and said, "Look they're using sex to sell records...that's evil too!"

I mean, have you ever really heard or listened to Diamanda Galas, Nina Hagen, Spooky Tooth, Ludichrist, Celtic Frost, or Christian Death? (the latter few painfully obviously formed to give morons like that a heart attack anyway)

Granted, they still had classics like AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Venom, etc. too, but come on.I used to watch the video for the soundtrack. Is that bad?

Elmer Fudd used to blast Daffy's duckbill right off his head at point blank range with a (sawed-off?) shotgun when I was a kid. So far it has only resulted in two mass-murder sprees by yours truly. I'd say the collateral damage is well within the acceptable limits.

theorellior:Okay, people, calm down. It was a mildly interesting article about the mythological archetypes that the human psyche has carried with it through the ages, and how that translates to young psychological development. Although the author may or may not be a Christian, fundie, crazy person or all three in combination, it really wasn't much of a religious tract, more of a comparative religious tract.

Dora is annoying because the way the actor voices her it's LIKE SHE'S SHOUTING ALL THE TIME.

CAN YOU HELP DORA FIND HER INSIDE VOICE?

......

GREAT!

/ two-year-old son loves that show// Find myself humming "I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the MAP!" more that I'd like

FitzShivering:Pretty easy to pick out who didn't read the article. There's no herp-a-derp fundy stuff in there. It's actually halfway interesting, and the author even admits it may not be conscious intent to do anything with "demons." Not seeing any, "OMG DORA IS CAVORTING WITH DEMONS MAKE UR CHILDREN STOP"

But the author is the one who made the jump from "innocent cartoon" to "is that fox a DEMON?"

People with minds that aren't full of superstitious crap like "fox-demons" don't do things like that.

Oh, there's a rich historical tradition of foxes being seen as demonic? You mean from times when people were even dumber than they are today? THIS MUST MEAN SOMETHING.

I think more people should be talking about the creepy premise behind Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Each episode, a problem presents itself in the first 5 minutes, and then they have to do a chant and dance to A) call Toodles to appear and B) activate the mousekedoer. The mousekedoer gives them 3 random objects and one mystery object to be used during the episode, which they can access by calling for Toodles and saying which they want. Then, when they can't climb a wall or something, they call for the giant blocks from Toodles and make stairs.

What this means is that the mousekedoer's omniscient and can see what obstacles they will encounter, so the show opens with them chanting to activate the all-knowing machine. Secondarily, Toodles is a weird side-kick to the god machine and can create anything from bologna sandwiches to an elephant, acting like the entity that manifests the will of the mousekedoer. It's just weird.

when you have to watch the same episode 20 times, you find something else to think about.

cherryl taggart:One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

...and the insidious plot behind Dora the Explorer is revealed at last.

One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

roc6783:I feel bad for having clicked and read any of that garbage. That being said, when my daughter was born, i told my wife that she will not even know Dora is a thing until she starts interacting with other kids. 6+ months on and I am still winning that battle.

//Still have a sneaking suspicion that my wife is better at picking battles than I am though.

I lasted most of 2 years. I even watched the NEWS in the morning while getting ready for work. Now he's 3 and I have lost the battle and the war. I haven't gotten my morning news and traffic anywhere but AM radio in the car in months. We were reading a book about zoos last night at bedtime and this was his narrative:

FTFA: If we could get children to treat all such "old enemies" with compassion and understanding, they might indeed understand one of the central tenants of the Christian tradition, unfortunately lost by the most "pious" among us: "Love thy enemy." Then, perhaps, we adults may all learn from our children to do the same to our foes, whether we conceive of them as demonic or not.

Ok. That whole article to close with those two sentences? Was Dora really the vehicle necessary to reach that conclusion? Methinks said professor may be dealing with a few demons himself.

TrainingWheelsNeeded:roc6783: I feel bad for having clicked and read any of that garbage. That being said, when my daughter was born, i told my wife that she will not even know Dora is a thing until she starts interacting with other kids. 6+ months on and I am still winning that battle.

//Still have a sneaking suspicion that my wife is better at picking battles than I am though.

you will lose. you will soon be able moving to the rhythm of a little song with only three words, "I'm The Map!

And you will be hypnotized by the wide-eyed stare of Boots the Monkey:

My next door neighbor was really into the Pokemon trading cards. I never really liked them (played Magic myself), but he spent all his money on buying more and more cards. Now, his family was super religious, to the point where the mom home-schooled them to keep them away from the devil that was public school.

Anyway, he comes over one day with this box, and he's just bawling his eyes out. I asked him what's wrong and he says "My sister and I got in a big fight. She went on the internet and found this article proving that Pokemon were a creation by the devil to distract kids from God. My mom is making me give away all my cards!" I asked him what he wanted me to do and he just yells "get rid of them I don't care!" and throws the box down and runs home. Well I took the box, brought it down to the trading card store a few days later and ended up selling the lot for about $700 (this was back when those holo ones could go for $100 each). I was like 12-13 at the time so that was a shiat-ton of money.

Went to his house the next day and handed him $400 in cash and told him to go buy a Playstation 2. I took mine and bought an Xbox. He bought the sports/racing/non-violent games, and I took care of the gory, M-rated games. Worked out well for both of us.